"We're in high gear," said South Burlington resident Maeve McBride, who has been working with 350 Vermont to publicize the march within and beyond the nonprofit group's membership:

By her last count, the Vermont contingent has secured 15 motor coaches, 10 of them paid for by ice-cream purveyor Ben & Jerry's Homemade Inc. Many other marchers are committed to carpooling, piling into vans and otherwise firming up travel and lodging plans.

"We have high-school students coming; we have 80-year-olds," McBride said. "We want to demonstrate that we have a broad, broad base of support on this issue. We're calling for bold action."

And on what can tens of thousands of demonstrators agree?

Parts-per-million of carbon dioxide in our atmosphere, for starters.

The "350" in McBride's group refers to the maximum levels thought to be conducive to genial human habitation of the planet (we're now at 400 ppm of the greenhouse gas, and rising).

The demonstration's other catalyst is a question: What are the costs of an increasingly warmer planet, and who will bear them?

"Climate justice is the overarching theme of the march," McBride explained. "We're all in this together.

"This is not Keystone (pipeline)-specific; it's not fracking-specific," she continued. "I think everyone who's going is increasingly aware of the links between economic justice and environmental justice."

A poster template for the upcoming People’s Climate March in New York City.(Photo: Courtesy People’s Climate March)

350 Vermont has been joined in mustering the troops by such environmental stalwarts as the state's chapter of the Sierra Club, the Vermont Natural Resources Council and the Vermont Public Interest Research Group (VPIRG).

The march also includes Rising Tide Vermont (whose most visible presence has been in protests against Vermont Gas' Addison Pipeline), the Vermont Workers' Center and dozens of regional college students.

McBride, 38, plans to head south with her husband and two children, ages 4 and 8, in a caravan mobilized by the First Unitarian Universalist Society in Burlington.

At 11 a.m. on the 21st, the march will begin with a moment of "prayer and shared hope."

McBride said she'll participate in the vigil and in the livelier aspects of the demonstration.

"Despite a lot of gloom, this is a celebration, too — of caring together," she said. "It takes everyone."

Pools and islands

Montpelier resident Robb Kidd will be there, and he estimates about 1,000 other Vermonters will join him.

Robb Kidd, Vermont Sierra Club(Photo: COURTESY ROGER CROWLEY)

A veteran of nonprofit Rural Vermont's successful legislative campaign to ease the flow of raw milk into the marketplace and to label genetically modified organisms in food, Kidd, 48, was hired by the Sierra Club at the end of June as a state organizer.

Climate change is a top priority for the club, Kidd said, and he leapt into action with conference calls and face-to-face meet-ups to drum up support for the upcoming march.

He summarized his work as "connecting people with other people in order to solve problems," and his pitch as "let's pool our resources; let's work together as a coalition."

His activism extends beyond a sign-up sheet.

"Some people can't make the trip, and I like to get them psyched and energized anyway," Kidd said. "I encourage them to think, 'OK, I can't go, but I've got to do something else — maybe write a letter to Sen. (Patrick) Leahy or Gov. (Peter) Shumlin.'

"We keep reaching out to people to remind them that they're all a part of a broader movement, they're part of something larger," he added.

Vermont might be on the vanguard of environmental discussions, Kidd concluded, "but the rest of the world is falling apart. Congress is falling apart. We're not an island here."

Tide, flood?

Like Kidd, Will Bennington, 26, is banking on the enduring enthusiasm of marchers to help steer local efforts.

"This is a huge opportunity for us to reach a wider audience, people from all walks of life, people attending for different reasons and from different places," said the Plainfield-based organizer for Rising Tide Vermont.

to Vermont and say, 'We want to do more.' And we'll answer, 'Here's what you can do. Come join us in a local fight.' Because what it boils down to is making progress in our back yards," Bennington added.

Unlike the Sierra Club, Rising Tide Vermont members at the march plan to target large corporations and banks in New York that Bennington said perpetuate a global economy that is ruinous to the environment.

"In our analysis, these so-called climate investors have false solutions to the crisis. These people are also courting the U.N.," he said.

Rising Tide has planned an unspecified "action" on the Monday following the march termed #FloodWallStreet, Bennington added, that aims to temporarily shut down the Big Apple's financial district.

Our generation

Some mayhem is to be expected at such a large gathering, "but hopefully, a fun, organized mayhem," said Keil Corey, the membership and outreach coordinator for Montpelier-based Vermont Natural Resources Council.

Keil Corey, Vermont Natural Resources Council(Photo: Courtesy VNRC)

Corey, like Bennington, is 26 years old. Both will be in New York, swapping ideas with other groups that have shouldered the myriad challenges of rapid climate change.

Corey's agenda is more tempered.

"I'm going to try not to get too weighed down in political discussions," he said. "I'm going to focus on solutions. If you look for them, you're going to find them."

Like 350 Vermont's Maeve McBride, Corey believes the emerging climate crisis too easily leads to apathy — and that activism works as an antidote: "There are a lot of reasons to be depressed these days, but mobilization adds life, and a motivation to keep going."

Corey credits some of his progress to an upbringing in Bristol, where he said absorbed, first-hand, "Vermont's unique culture of serious community action."

And this is the big one.

"This is the issue of our generation," Corey said. "And by that, I mean — anyone who's living right now."

A poster for the May 21 People’s Climate March, designed by Cesar Maxit.(Photo: Courtesy People’s Climate March)

Contact Joel Banner Baird at 660-1843 or joelbaird@FreePressMedia.com. Follow him on Twitter at www.twitter.com/vtgoingup.

* * *

Going local

Climate activists in Chittenden County are gearing up for a local demonstration of support for the much-larger march in New York City.

• WHEN: 1:30 p.m., Sept. 20.

• WHERE: Main Green at University of Vermont.

• MORE INFO: Contact Julia Michel, jmichel@vpirg.org.

A poster for the May 21 People’s Climate March, designed by Cesar Maxit.(Photo: Courtesy People’s Climate March)

* * *

Moving images

"Disruption," a new, 52-minute film that describes advances in climate science and climate advocacy, has been produced in concert with the upcoming New York march.

Although available for online viewing, the film also has some public screenings. In Burlington:

• WHEN: 6 p.m. Wednesday.

• WHERE: Fletcher Free Library, College Street.

• MORE INFO: Updates for more film showings and other climate advocacy-related events are hosted at the People's Climate March Vermont "hub," www.peoplesclimate.org/vermont.